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Dense, inpenetrable, Tatar,drawn from God knows when,it clings to every disaster,itself a doom without end.

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) a.k.a.Anna Gorenko(1960s)translation by Robert Chandler

Extra information: Akhmatova wrote the above piece about her pen name during her later years. When Anna Andreyevna Gorenko began publishing poetry, in her late teens, her father considered it an unrespectable pursuit and so she adopted her grandmother’s Tatar surname of Akhmatova as a pen name when publishing her works from then on as Anna Akhmatova by which name she is more commonly known.

Fun fact: Of course the opening line of this poem refers to Lord Byron. George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron ByronFRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known as Lord Byron, was a British nobleman, poet, peer, politician, and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage as well as the short lyric poem “She Walks in Beauty”.

Lermontov compares himself to Byron as both endure exile – however Byron’s, unlike Lermontov’s, was by choice. Perhaps more interesting to note is that Byron exiled himself to escape his fame in Britain while, in contrast, Lermontov fears he will die before his verse is recognised. Both became infamous but their reaction to it was very different.

Comparing both you wonder how sincere Lermontov is in this comparison and his voiced concerns of his verse being left unknown considering his poem Death of the Poet, its final part written impromptu, in the course of several minutes, was spread around by Rayevsky and caused uproar. The last 16 lines of it, explicitly addressed to the inner circles at the court, all but accused the powerful “pillars” of Russian high-society of complicity in Pushkin’s death. The poem portrayed that society as a cabal of self-interested venomous wretches “huddling about the throne in a greedy throng”, “the hangmen who kill liberty, genius, and glory” about to suffer the apocalyptic judgment of God. The poem propelled Lermontov to an unprecedented level of fame. Zhukovsky hailed the “new powerful talent“; popular opinion greeted him as “Pushkin’s heir“. Hardly a man who is doomed to have his thoughts unheeded by the crowd.

Perhaps, in his favour, we might reflect he is confessing to being unable to endure his sudden fame caused by his controversial poem, as Byron had gleefully revelled in for his own works and indeed lifestyle, and is somewhat regretful and fearful it would only be for ‘Death of a Poet‘ he would be remembered and none of his other works. Of course we now know him as a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called “the poet of the Caucasus“, the most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin’s death in 1837 and the greatest figure in Russian Romanticism. His influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times, not only through his poetry, but also through his prose, which founded the tradition of the Russian psychological novel.

Fun facts: Counted amongst the admirers of Tyutchev’s works were Dostoevsky and Tolstoy along with Nekrasov and Fet. Then later Osip Mandelstam who, in a passage approved of by Shalamov, believed that a Russian poet should not have copy of Tyutchev in his personal library – he should know all of Tyutchev off by heart.

Not so fun facts about the poem’s subject: On 28 of December in 1925 Yesenin was found dead in the room in the Hotel Angleterre in St Petersburg. His last poem Goodbye my friend, goodbye (До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья) according to Wolf Ehrlich was written by him the day before he died. Yesenin complained that there was no ink in the room, and he was forced to write with his blood. According to the consensus among academic researchers of Yesenin’s life, the poet was in a state of depression a week after he escaped from a mental clinic and committed suicide by hanging. A theory exists that Yesenin’s death was actually a murder by OGPU agents who staged it to look like suicide.